A great movie monster taps into our most primal fears, a terrible one taps into equal parts hilarity and sadness.

While we were busy fumbling with hand gestures and illustrations like cavemen, other cultures just made up the perfect words and phrases to encapsulate those little everyday moments filled with ... uh ... je ne sais quoi.

There are people who look at Batman and say, 'Yeah, I see what people like about Batman, but wouldn't he be better if I ruined him?' This article is about them.

Like elves in Santa's workshop, bootleg toy makers around the world are busy cranking action figures and games for all of the world's children. Only these will be sold by street vendors and dollar stores, at a fraction of the price of official toys.

Some celebrities drastically misjudge their demographic and we wind up with releases of classical Renaissance ballads as sung by Brock Lesnar or a line of fur coats sponsored by Moby.

Not listed: The Cracked staff can wear its Mad Max gear out on the town and not get weird looks.

The modern world as we know it was shaped by the minds of geniuses. But the same outside the box thinking that gave us our great innovations also gave them some truly ridiculous ideas.

Everything you think you know is wrong. Also, it can kill you dead.

The thing about being super rich is that you eventually run out of things to buy. Fortunately, before you ever get so desperate as to, say, give money to the poor, there is a whole industry devoted to inventing ridiculous things to waste it on.